Eric the Red and Leif Ericson

CK_3_TH_HG_P091_145.QXD 4/11/05 10:56 AM Page 143 French equivalent of Norsemen, meaning “men from the north.” It is another term for the Vikings. The Normans settled, intermarried with the French, and soon began to speak French. In 1066 CE, William, Duke of Normandy (also known as William the Conqueror) and his Norman forces invaded England and seized control, estab- lishing what was to become the modern country of England. William was more French than Viking. Likewise, when other Normans moved into the Mediterranean and took over Sicily at about the same time, they, too, had lost most of their Viking heritage. Teaching Idea Eric the Red and Leif Ericson Make an overhead from Instructional Master 25, Viking Voyages West, to While the Vikings from Sweden and Denmark were looking south and east, help students visualize the stepping the Vikings from Norway were moving west. From the close-in islands like the stones the Vikings used in their Hebrides, they sailed farther out to the Orkney and Faroe Islands. From there exploration west and to understand they went to Iceland and farther west still to Greenland—and then North how far Leif Ericson and his crew America. traveled in a small boat across the By 870, the Vikings had reached Iceland. In Iceland, the Vikings found a land open seas. To give students an even that was virtually unpopulated and suited for agriculture. At this time, Norwegian greater appreciation of the small size monarchs were attempting to exert their power over the country, thus antagoniz- of longships, you may wish to mark ing many chiefs and others. These people were only too eager to move to Iceland. off the typical dimensions of a Viking In 930, they established a cooperative government, the world’s oldest functioning longship in a hallway or outside on a parliament. At that time, the land was forested and fertile, but human activity rap- soccer field or other open area. idly changed the environment. People cut down trees for lumber and to clear Longships typically ranged in length tracts of land. Their herds foraged on the grasses. The result was erosion. Today, from 45 to 80 feet long and were quite there are few trees and little good farmland in Iceland. narrow, often only about 8 to 15 feet In 982, Eric the Red was expelled from Iceland for murder. He sailed west wide. For example, a longship found and came to a huge island where he found a cold, bleak, rugged land, much of in Gokstad, Norway, in the late 1800s which was buried beneath deep fields of ice. He called it Greenland to entice set- was 78 feet long and only 17 feet tlers. Other Vikings followed him and settled along the coast. There, they built wide. large houses with thick walls of stone and turf to keep in the heat. The Viking set- tlements lasted into the 1300s or 1400s, but when English explorers redis- covered the island in the 1500s, they found no trace of the descendants of these first colonists. At some point they had disappeared, either dying out or Name mixing with the Eskimos who had also settled on the island. Study the map below. Then answer the questions that follow. Around 1000, Leif Ericson, Eric the Red’s son, sailed west from Greenland. He found and explored three areas that he called Flat Rock Land, Forest Land, and Vinland. He built a settlement in Vinland as a base for exploration of resources in the area. The group found grapes and unknown fruits and nuts. They also encountered local people who first traded and then fought with them. The Vikings stayed only a few seasons. The local people were a constant threat, and the Vikings were too few in number to control the 1. In North America the Vikings landed in 2. They also sailed west to Iceland and area. Their supply line was also 2,000 miles long. On his return trip to Purpose: To read and interpret a map featuring the westward voyage of the Vikings Master 25 Greenland, Leif Ericson and his men rescued a shipwrecked Viking crew. According to custom, Leif was awarded the rich cargo of the ship and was henceforth known as “Leif the Lucky.” Use Instructional Master 25. The exploits of Leif Ericson, as well as his father, Eric the Red, were captured in Norse sagas, long stories of heroic deeds. The Norse sagas were similar to the Roman Aeneid and the Greek Iliad and Odyssey in that they provided information about the beginnings of a group. In all cases, there is some truth to be found in History and Geography: World 143.

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